


What the Heart Knows

by Dreadful_Penny



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2198742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadful_Penny/pseuds/Dreadful_Penny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in the sphere doesn't ever get better.  Sometimes trying to change the situation makes it much worse.  But prisons sometimes offer rewards for good behavior...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Heart Knows

**Author's Note:**

> This was written just after I watched the S3 episode "3...2...1" and I started to ponder what Helena might be up to when she's stuck alone in a little ball. What could possibly be the worst punishment for a mind like hers? The F/F is only implied. 
> 
> Also, I'm not finished with the series yet (watching via Netflix). So if Helena's situation within the sphere is later revealed and my interpretation is wildly incorrect, then forgive me and be gentle.

The first time she'd opened her eyes in her new prison, Helena had been greeted with utter darkness. She blinked hard but her eyes didn't adjust to the level of darkness that this new place held. She felt as if she were floating in a bath; not a warm, pleasant bath. This was a used-up bath that had started to grow cold and you knew that you were floating in what remained of your own greasy grime. It wasn't cold, and it wasn't necessarily unpleasant. It was…nothing. It was a sensory deprivation tank of the finest degree, she had decided. Certainly they wouldn't leave her here permanently. But as seconds turned to minutes turned to hours, she began to feel the faint itching around the edges of her consciousness that she recalled from Christina's death. Madness was beginning to settle in. 

Well. HG Wells, creator of the fantastic, was not to be done in that way. This she kept in mind as she began to try to imagine a home for herself, and her daughter waiting in it. To her dismay she wound up in a small, cluttered home that she'd never seen before in her life. Disappointingly, there were no books. Worst of all, Christina was nowhere to be seen. She wandered around the house and wrinkled her nose at the mess. It wasn't dirty, precisely, but neither was it tidy. There were piles of belongings that she'd never seen in her life, dust in the corners and a sink filled with dirty dishes. She sighed. This was almost the exact opposite of what she'd wished for. She wondered, for one wild moment, if they'd imprisoned her in that ferret-generating tea pot. But of course they wouldn't, that was in the Warehouse, and the Warehouse was home. They'd never imprison her in her own home. Not even the Regents were that sadistic.

Oh wait, she reminded herself. Bronzing. Never mind.

The days were all the same. Wake up, make breakfast for that particular day's insufferable, greasy husband (the faces all changed, but one thing remained consistent: the unkempt mustache and a faint scent of old, fried food), peck him on the cheek goodbye, and then go about housewifely duties. It was miserable in its redundancy. Day in, day out: wake up, shower, dress in something so out of character for herself that she had wanted to burst into laughter the first time it had happened, cook a boring breakfast for the insufferable husband, do the exact same chores every single day. Eventually the insufferable husband would return. He never did anything to her. He sat in a recliner, watched the same terrible television show, ate the same dinner that she was compelled to prepare for him, and fell asleep in the chair. Every single night. One night, she had decided to try and seduce the husband out of sheer boredom. It hadn't worked. He hadn't looked away from his television program. Evidently, scruffy, ignorant duck hunters were more interesting than his own wife. Her other attempts to modify the daydream only resulted in more unpleasant details arising. Attempting to imagine a dishwasher had doubled the amount of dishes in the sink. Trying to give up and just sit on the couch to watch the telly rather than cleaning the house hadn't worked either; the telly wouldn't turn on. Attempting to conjure a cup of tea had yielded a flat diet soda. 

One morning, though, after her shower, Helena had been applying perfume as she normally did. This time, however, the generic bottle of flowery liquid had been replaced by one of those small, dark apothecary bottles that Claudia was so fond of. She twisted open the cap slowly and lifted it to her nose. The aroma of vanilla, spices and patchouli wafted out. It was precisely the blend that Claudia had given her when she'd first returned to full time work at the Warehouse. Delighted, Helena applied the oil and opened her closet to dress for this new day in Hell. Another surprise waited behind the closet door. It was her very own wardrobe of sensible trousers, button-up shirts, vests, boots, coats…even her favorite leather belt was hanging exactly where it should have been, had this been the closet in her room at Leena's. 

Helena's eyes widened at the sight. She spun to discover that the cluttered, cramped bedroom that she now shared with an ever-changing roster of husbands had been replaced by her old, comfortable quarters at the B&B. Muted sunlight shone through the curtains, highlighting the reds and oranges in her rug. She sucked in a deep breath at the sight of her desk, piled with several tidy stacks of work and books. Best of all, the small portrait of Christina was on the table next to the bed. It was home. Somehow, miraculously, home had been permitted to manifest in her prison.

There was a gentle tap at the door. "Helena?"

"Leena?" Helena walked slowly towards the door. "Is that you then?"

"It is. May I come in?"

Helena began to answer then stopped and thought for a moment. "Do I have a choice?" 

"Not really, unfortunately." Helena could almost hear the regret in Leena's voice. "But I decided to be polite anyway. Please, will you let me in?"

"Of course," Helena replied. She reached out and opened the door. It WAS Leena on the other side, waiting patiently and serenely as the real Leena undoubtedly would have been. She smiled gently and walked through the door. It even smelled like Leena. The faint, clean scent of lemon and sweetgrass wafted into the room in Leena's wake.

"Leena, are you truly here? I know that you have some abilities that aren't…typical."

"Yes, Helena, I'm really here. The Regents have permitted me to enter. They have been watching, you know. They were impressed by your ingenuity."

"Thank you, I think?" Helena said, feeling completely bewildered. 

"It's an honest compliment. Figuring out how to alter your surroundings while you're in the Sphere is a very complex task," Leena said.

"Yes, well, complex is my forte, you know. May I ask, why are you here?"

Leena smiled. "I have something for you. Mrs. Frederic had to have it cleared by the Regents before they would allow it and they have decided to allow for this one small token." She put a small box in Helena's hand. It rattled gently when Helena gave it a cautionary shake. "Go on," Leena urged her, still smiling. "If they wanted to hurt you, they wouldn't need to send my avatar into your consciousness." 

Leena opened the box and felt her heart began to race. Her locket. She'd felt for it dozens, hundreds of times and it had never been around her neck. She'd tossed the entire home looking for it, even though she knew that it wasn't going to be there. It was cruel, but she hadn't been terribly surprised. She WAS in prison after a sense. It wasn't exactly equipped with the amenities that one was accustomed to. She lifted the locket from the box and felt for the tiny latch on the side. It opened with a faint click to reveal the tiny picture within. Leena was talking again. She forced herself to concentrate. "You need to know who sent this to you," Leena said softly. She glanced around, even though there was nobody in the room and certainly nobody else in the house. "Mrs. Frederic petitioned the Regents and they approved for you to have this. But it wasn't Mrs. Frederic's idea."

"Whose then?"

"Think about it. You know who sent it. She thinks of you all the time." Leena's gentle smile turned a little wistful as her eyes unfocused. She appeared to be sorting through her own memories. "She misses you. She's heartbroken that you were willing to betray all of us. She would have died that day on the river, you know. She was ready to do it, because that's what the Secret Service does. But you know, she was sure that you weren't going to pull the trigger on her. She loves you. She's so afraid of it, because she's never loved anyone like she loves you. It doesn't fit with her vision of herself. But it is what it is, and she's accepted it. She was the one who insisted that you deserved it. She noticed that you didn't have it at the bookstore." Leena blinked and looked into Helena's eyes. 

They were shining with unshed tears. 

"I need to go now," Leena said. "My time is up. But think about what I said. And enjoy having your room back. The Regents have decided to let you keep this room if you wish. Outside the room is the rest of the house that you've been stuck in, but this room will be the same. They also wanted me to tell you that they have agreed to eliminate the husband. Your day won't change much, but you won't have your imaginary husband any more. Does he smell?"

"He smells horrible."

"He looks like he smells. But he's gone. And so am I." Leena stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the other woman for a brief, warm hug. Helena hugged her back. "Remember what I said," Leena whispered. She stepped back, then disappeared. The scent of sweetgrass lingered in the air.

Helena stood before her small mirror and fastened the locket's chain around her neck. It slipped beneath her blouse as it always did. She wondered how Myka had known that it was missing when she'd spoken to her back at the bookstore. One would have to pay very close attention to notice its absence.  
_____

Myka was curled up on the couch with a book when Leena walked in later that evening. She looked up nervously, the question silent in her eyes. Leena nodded. A smile spread across Myka's face. "Thank you," she said. 

"You're welcome," Leena said.


End file.
